Kenyan and Italian cultural traffic growing

Since the arrival of Francesca Chiesa in Nairobi a little more than two years ago, the new director of the Italian Institute of Culture has had a major impact on the local cultural scene. IIC staff had been doing their best before she arrived, but she is actually the Institute’s first director to come to Kenya since 2012.

Speaking early this week before a room-full of PEN Kenya members and other aspiring Kenyan writers that she’d invited to join her at the Stanley Hotel, Ms Chiesa (pictured) spoke of her role at ICC, which she explained was under her country’s ministry of Foreign Affairs and as such, had a specific mandate, to promote Italian culture.

“We are different from other cultural institutes in Kenya in that we strictly support that mandate, so our priority is not specifically to support Kenyan creatives,” she said frankly.

Ms Chiesa has found many imaginative ways to share some of the most beautiful features of Italian culture with Kenyans through programs she’s hosted at ICC which simultaneously highlight the artistic interests of local creatives.

For instance, she organised an exhibition showcasing Italian fashion designs; but displayed it side by side with Kenya’s most widely known ‘fashion accessory’, the bag hand-painted by Michael Soi and the one that Kenya’s award winning actress and model Lupita Nyong’o made famous when she carried it in public and told the paparazzi the bag came from Soi of Kenya.

Francesca did something similar when she curated an exhibition of Italian Renaissance art and dedicated a section of the show to the artworks of the Kenyan painter Longinos Nagila since they reflected similar subjects to those painted by High Renaissance artists.

And early this week she was promoting Italian literature as well as the glorious city of Venice where her guest speaker, Professor Shaul Bassi lectures on English and African literature at the University of Venice.

Taking the topic of ‘Cultural Cooperation: Exchanges of content, projects, resources’ both the ICC director and Prof Bassi covered various ways that Kenyan writers can get involved with cultural exchange programs. Dr. Bassi also observed that several Kenyan writers, including O’Okwemba Khainga, Tony Mochama, Muthoni Garland and Billy Kahora had already come to Venetian University participating in cultural exchanges.